2220 Shelbourne st. House Fire Fundraiser

On the evening of November 11th, 5 people and two pets were displaced from their home due to a house fire. The fire completely destroyed one of the upstairs bedrooms including structural damage to the surrounding area and severe smoke damage throughout most of the house. The fire has made their rental uninhabitable for a number of months, while the landlord completes the repairs needed before they can rent the unit again. The blaze was massive and very stressful for all involved, and was even covered in this CTV News article.

The landlord had insurance on the home and has been very kind and helpful in dealing with the situation as much as is possible, but the tenants did not have renters insurance so their own interim housing needs and possessions lost are not covered. 

Spencer Bialek, Samantha-Reid (Sami) Cooney, Tamar, Katelyn and Taylor Bunn and their cat Skooma and Rabbit Sesame very luckily all made it out safely, but their losses were extensive.

Sami is a lovely, effervescent human being who studies at Pacific Rim college in Victoria, likes to dress up in crazy costumes from her tickle trunk, and bounce into your life with a wild smile and a big hug. She has dealt with a lot this year already, including a serious head trauma and other medical difficulties. She is a very kind and giving person, and she has lost everything she owned with the exception of a few random items that were downstairs. Her bedroom was the worst point in the blaze. From what they witnessed, the fire started on her balcony while she was in the bath. It turned into a serious blaze before anyone was alerted. Just after Sami came out of the bathroom, the sliding door shattered and the fire tore into her room just as she was running outside in a towel with conditioner still in her hair.

Tamar is a gentle and kind human who was a very calm and sweet presence in their home. She is a social worker currently supporting family connections during Covid-19 in a long term care home. She is also an expressive art facilitator and artist, and is working towards integrating social work and art for patients in palliative care and end of life. She is a lover of cats, tea, and being near the ocean or wandering in a forest. Her bedroom was the second worst hit from the fire, the room that shared a wall with Sami's bedroom. Most of her belongings are in very poor condition or destroyed by extensive smoke and water damage. She may be able to salvage a few items from her room, but for the most part even the items that are still intact would need to be at least industrially cleaned or replaced due to the smoke damage levels.

Taylor Bunn is a quiet, introspective human who surprises you with sporadic funny one liners. She spends most of her time working on digital art and hanging out with her bunny Sesame. She likes video games, art, music, reading, and writing. She works at Bosleys. Her bedroom was also on the top floor. Fortunately with a couple walls between it and the worst part of the blaze and her door happening to be closed, a lot of her belongings are better off, but she did lose a lot of her clothing to smoke damage. She was able to get Sesame out safely, which was the most important thing. 

Katelyn Bunn and Spencer Bialek share the last bedroom downstairs. Katelyn is a personal service worker. She is funny, outgoing, genuine human who draws beautiful things. She likes yoga, adventures, anime, and anything sweet. She bakes for her housemates and loves to get together for communal meals. Spencer is a nerdy, endearing and deeply intelligent PhD student in astrophysics at UVic who is passionate about his work and likes hiking, adventures, and rock climbing. He likes to set up his telescope on some nights for everyone to have a peek at different celestial bodies. Because their room was downstairs from the fire, they luckily avoided much major damage to their personal belongings. However, some of their electronics and furniture in the living area were damaged from smoke and the water leaking through from the structural damage upstairs, and will need to be cleaned thoroughly or replaced. They got their cat Skooma out, scared but safely.

While everyone is very grateful to have gotten out safely and was able to find a place to stay with friends (Hi, that's me, hosting them and spearheading this fundraiser for them!) temporarily, they have all experienced a major trauma and are left homeless (and possessionless to various degrees) until their rental is repaired and they can replace what they lost. From what they know to date, the repairs could take 6 months or more. They will have to recover and remove all their belongings from their burnt out rental. Then, store those items as well as any items they replace along the way and otherwise "move out", such as it is.

They will need to find a new home until their unit is ready again. They are hoping to all stay together if the right accommodations can be found, but may not be able to. 3-5 humans and 2 pets seeking a home in Victoria where they work and study is a difficult ask with the rental market here as it is, let alone in the middle of the month, for a short term stay, ideally furnished. All of this, plus additional levels of difficulty stemming from being in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. It will probably involve higher rent, possibly some interim airbnb stays until they can find a rental, on top of moving and storage costs. They've also had to take time off work to handle everything that has happened, deal with finding a place to stay, pack, and sift through the ashes both literally and figuratively. 

On top of needing to remedy their sudden state of homelessness, many thousands of dollars worth of belongings were lost, from furniture, bedding, clothing, toiletries, books + textbooks, electronics, and things for hobbies like art supplies, journals, crafting materials, camping gear, and much more were all lost. There were many items destroyed that were deeply sentimental, and/or otherwise irreplaceable. Sami also lost her scooter which was destroyed by fire raining down onto it from the balcony, which was luckily the one thing that was insured, but she has lost her only means of independent transport until it can be replaced. Prior to living in Victoria, she worked as a marine conservationist and photographer, and all her scuba gear, camera equipment, hard drives and memory cards are lost.

There are the obvious costs of housing, storage, moving, replacing belongings, and recovering from this disaster in their lives is going to be very expensive, and probably span several months until they will all be able to be fully stable again.  Given all of these challenges, they also all deserve some self care services, be it counselling/therapy to help deal with the emotional toll of the experience, or massage, chiropractic, or other means of grounding and healing from this disaster. 

They were able to receive some directed  gift cards from Red Cross to help replace some of their immediate essentials, as well as collections of items donated from friends, like warm clothes, underwear, shoes, toiletries, food, etc., but these are minor and won't help with the majority of moving related costs. 

This is where we reach out to you. These 5 amazing people suffered an extremely disastrous event. While they are all very luckily safe and were able find a place with friends to turn up, with their pets, covered in soot, in the middle of the night after a house fire to rest, they need a lot more support than just that. We know that in these 2020 times funds are tight for many, but we also know that these folks are very loved and have a huge community who wants to support them. If many of us come together, donations big and small will all combine to be massively helpful for these lovely folks. If you are not able to donate, we understand. Please consider sharing this with those you know, and lets blow their socks off (or replaced their burned ones) with all the support we can give them.